4. Began construction on two enormous superhospital projects, the McGill University Hospital Centre and the Centre Hospitalier Universite de Montreal (MUHC and CHUM superhospitals). The MUHC will be the largest hospital in Canada, and the CHUM will be almost the same size.

5. Millions of dollars of improvements to the `Quartier des Spectacles`cultural quarter, including new performance venues and improved festival grounds. This includes the beautiful new Montreal Symphony House for our Orchestra which opened up a few months ago.

6. Construction of a respectable number of new downtown skyscrapers, including office buildings, hotels and residential buildings.

7. The first Montreal Nuit Blanche festival was held in 2003 and it has become another wonderful festival tradition in the city. An all night city wide party dedicated to the arts originally founded in Europe, its adoption has become hugely successful.

8. We got a major league soccer franchise and a stadium to house them, the Montreal Impact who will play at Saputo Stadium, next to the Olympic Stadium, when it is completed. So far they are doing very well.

10. Big, expensive new buildings on every Montreal university campus and some CEGEPs (local obligatory junior college between highschool and university which offers both pre-university programs and vocational training).

How could I tell for Paris? Have you ever seen the metro area? it's a freaking nebula.

There's one sure thing, whether people like it or not, it's been boosted since Sarkozy's the prez, and that despite the financial/economic crisis. It was slower when Chirac was ruling. Maybe that's partly why so many French hate Sarko, he's doing something lol. Paris's mayor has been kinda useful too, though.

But the 10 biggest achievements of Paris in the past decade? Dude, I have no idea. Maybe someone else could try such a list.

I can only think of three things for Boston, but i was kind of young for most of it and hadnt really paid attention to things like that till recently. Hopefully someone else does it, and other cities that are missing

Completing Sea-Tac Airport's third runway, giving it finally the ability to land two streams in low-visibility.

The new Amazon headquarters in 15 buildings and counting, beteen purpose-built and new leased space.

The Gates Foundation Headquarters.

That's only six. It's hard to think of the next four. But the city has transformed. Not on the level of some cities, but certainly to a high degree, particularly in and near Downtown.

Seattle has undergone a massive amount of civic investment, including probably a billion in school renovations and hundreds of millions for libraries, fire stations, and parks. City hall and the city, county, and federal courts are all new or partly/totally renovated. Same with football stadiums.

On the private side, we've always had buildings going up around Greater Downtown and elsewhere. Greater Downtown (2,000 acres or so) is back in boom mode with 20 tower cranes or so currently. That area has added maybe 10,000 housing units based on 10 years of starts, of which over 3,500 are now underway. It's added thousands of hotel rooms, several million square feet of offices, and some major museum and performing arts projects. Also quite a few lab buildings and hospital buildings.

1. Passed Fastracks, though the boon-doogle it has become is very much a mixed blessing. Also the completion of T-Rex.

2. 2008 DNC and the resulting bike sharing program.

3. Avs won a Stanley Cup. Rapids got an MLS trophy. Rockies had an improbable ride to the World Series. CU got robbed of a National Title Game. DU won a few national championships and no one really noticed. Broncos had a bazillion QBs. Melo came and went.

4. Convention Center and final DCPA renovations/additions completed.

5. New office building projects from the EPA Region 8 office building to 1800 Larimer.

6. New residential projects in downtown from Spire to smaller developments in Highland.

7. The Libeskind addition to the Denver Art Museum and more new museums on the way!

8. The new zoning code, even if Highland doesn't like it.

9. Better Denver Bond projects.

10. I moved out to Colorado.

Noteworthy projects: Stapleton development, but urban-surburbia is just so icky.

Pearson Airport's new Terminal 1 cost $4.4 billion and was built to accommodate 29 million passengers. The old Terminal 1 (shown in 3rd pic) was torn down and the new Terminal 1 'Hammerhead', as depicted below, opened in 2004. Eventually, Terminal 3 (at the top of the render below) will be torn down as Terminal 1 enters Phase II of its growth. It will expand and extend to where Terminal 3 now stands. Capacity will increase to 50 million.

ROM Crystal

The Royal Ontario Museum underwent an expansion and facelift.

Courtesy of galinsky

Courtesy of the Torontoist

AGO

The Art Gallery of Ontario underwent a major renovation and expansion. The AGO is best known for housing Rubens' The Massacre of the Innocents.

Courtesy of Paul Leli

Courtesy of the Art Gallery of Ontario

Gardiner Museum

The Gardiner Museum underwent a major facelift.

Aga Khan Cultural Centre

The Aga Khan chose Toronto as a centre for the world Ismaili community. The $300 million museum and cultural centre is almost complete. The Aga Khan intends the centre to act as a bridge between Islam and the Western world.

Toronto Subway Rolling Stock

Toronto's Red Rocket is being replaced. The car features an open-concept design which will allow people to walk from car to car. The cars also feature a number of new safety, health and accessibility features such as hand poles covered with an anti-bacterial coating and more wheelchair spaces. The 78 new subway cars cost $236.7-million and can hold 10% more people than the current cars.

Courtesy of the National Post

Bloor Street Improvement Project

'The Mink Mile', Toronto's toniest shopping strip underwent an overhaul that widened the sidewalk, paved it in granite, added planters, and a root system in which trees can properly mature.

Waterfront renewal started

Many kilometres of Toronto waterfront will be rebuilt into a pedestrian friendly promenade. Work begun a few years ago with about 20% of it complete at this point.

Courtesy of ConstructionCanada

Union Station renewal

Union Station is Toronto's main rail hub. It acts as the Toronto terminus for the national rail service, southern Ontario rail, and subway. It is undergoing a major expansion that will increase capacity, add shops, and replace the rail shed with a glass and green roof. Work begun a few months ago.

Regent Park redevelopment

Regent Park is a failed community housing project built decades ago. It is being demolished bit by bit and replaced by mixed income properties. The market rate units are indistinguishable from the subsidized units. Red brick 3 storey buildings coming down, glass towers going up!

West Don Lands development started

The West Don Lands is a massive tract of former industrial land directly to the east of downtown Toronto. It is being converted into a new community that will house thousands of new residents. The West Don Lands is the area bounded by green. It will house the athlete's village for the 2015 Pan American Games then be sold as condos. Work begun last year.

East Bayfront development started

East Bayfront is another massive tract of former industrial land between downtown and the West Don Lands. Work begun last year on its transformation into a brand new part of the city. It is the area in the forefront along the lakeshore. The first building on the lakeshore is now complete. It's the one furthest to the left in the render below.

Courtesy of the Toronto Star

Courtesy of Diamond Schmitt

50 100m+ buildings constructed

Toronto's urban fabric is undergoing a massive transformation with the construction boom now 6 years long with no signs of slowing. Almost everything in the first render is now built. Almost everything in the second render is built or under construction. The downtown skyline has grown enormously since 2000.

Didn't the 2006 census show it just below 50%? I'll change the spelling mistake.

It was oft quoted as being 49% (so I can't blame you for thinking that was correct), but thats based on an incorrect interpretation of the data. Of the 2,476,565 people who responded, 1,237,720 (49.9%) were indeed foreign-born citizens, but only 1,184,235 people (47.8%) were born in Canada. The other 54,610 people (2.2%) were non-permanent foreign residents.

- the creation of the atlanta beltline plan and opening of first phases of trails, parks
- the new ~3mi downtown streetcar (finally u/c now, but in planning last decade)
- atlantic station - the city's biggest new mixed use development
- ga aquarium
- the coming of age of buckhead, as the city's 3rd and newest urban(izing) business district
- a multitude of new condo towers, mostly centered around midtown
- new international terminal, people mover and fifth runway at hartsfield
- various other new mixed use developments around the city - inman park village, glenwood park, technology square, etc
- piedmont park expansion
- the establishment and rapid growth of numerous studios and other production facilities for new films and tv shows shot (and sometimes set) here

My city started the decade full of potential with lots of good ideas and great intentions but then my city just ended up getting baked and playing video games,and then 2010 came and my city said to itself "holy crap That ten years went by quick. What happened?"

__________________
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs

^^ That's quite an accomplishment. Toronto is suffering from the exact opposite. The last championship was in football (2004). The baseball team hasn't won since 1993, hockey 1967, and the Raptors have never won.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

It was oft quoted as being 49% (so I can't blame you for thinking that was correct), but thats based on an incorrect interpretation of the data. Of the 2,476,565 people who responded, 1,237,720 (49.9%) were indeed foreign-born citizens, but only 1,184,235 people (47.8%) were born in Canada. The other 54,610 people (2.2%) were non-permanent foreign residents.

Thanks for the information. What about the Toronto CMA though. I was under the impression that the CMA also breached the 50% tipping point, but achieved this a few years after the central city?

Quote:

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Everything in that East Bayfront picture looks so brown and colourless. I was skeptical at first, but this video makes it look much better.

I prefer brown to almost any other colour because it's a warm earth tone. Glass would be colourless, while grey/green/light blue would be drab. Brown? Bring it on. Some red or black brick/other heavy material would be very welcomed too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by initiald

Actually, those are terra cotta tiles; one of the favorite building materials of architect Mario Botta. He also did the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with a similar facade.